Hello Everyone,

These past few weeks have been pretty crazy. I apologize for the shortness of my last few E-mails and for the certain lack of written mail. I've been pretty stripped for time. Also you may have noticed I've pulled out some more money from my account. That is because I don't have any! We still haven't gotten reimbursed for last month and there's still a week left in this month. Luckily a decently sized good meal only costs a dollar here.

My new companions name is Elder Oliger. I would describe him as fairly short, very hungry, good hearten and simple.
He showed me his I.D. from back in high school. He's gained 100 pounds since then. Ouch. But, he's a great companion. I had decided to speak only Thai to him as I mentioned before, well, I'm still doing it. It's quite difficult sometimes, but it's also a very good thing that I've tried. Specifically, because his Thai is a little unclear, and I am in a position to where I need to lead the area. I hope I can help him out with his goals and good desires for this "moves" (I think Thailand is the only place that uses the word moves instead of transfers, which has nothing to do with Thai). He's been out for about a year now and this would be his 8th moves. I am his first junior companion. I'm grateful for the opportunity for growth that this situation provides me. I know that the Lord qualifies his called. If I need to speak the language to do this, the Lord will help me for sure. Already he has!

This last Sunday was a baptism of one of my old original investigators before the two other Elders came in and split the area. His baptism was going to be before, but it ended up then. He's overcome Tuberculosis, smoking, his addiction of soda. He's come a long long ways.

This Moves President dodge announced a reallocation of the target number of missionaries in Asia. They are going to decrease the amount of missionaries in the Asia sector and increase the number everywhere else. Specifically for Thailand this means a 25% decrease of missionaries, which is about 40 missionaries. That's a huge change. But, this change does not mean less baptism or less people in Thailand hearing the Word of God. It means that the members are going to have to take the responsibility, and increased roll in missionary work. The Ideal situation for us teachers of religion is that the members will be the finders and the missionaries will be the teachers.

My district specifically are making goals to help inspire the members to a new vision of missionary work in the future. I think sometimes the things we are sooo incredibly blessed with become a bit mundane. The irony is that the primary answers are so important that we hear them all the time and because we hear them all the time we don't think about their importance. The last time that we had a spiritually uplifting experience should be the last time we prayed. In church a lot of times we teach about truths without thinking about what the truths mean, who they come from. My personal goal for my area in Thailand is to help the ward change from a school like mundane feeling to rejoicing in Christ. I hope they can remember the Spirit they felt when they were baptized and be excited about their progression!
I'm reminded of when the angel came down to Nephi to tell him about Christ's birth and gave him permission, maybe even a charge to rejoice.
Some little changes that my district is starting to do is sing hymns when we teach and before meetings, we're going to start singing hymns after church on Sunday and invite anyone to come join us learn the hymns. (The Thai people in general love the hymns and the majority of them can't read music or sing very well because they don't get trained in school like us farangs). I love the power of music. We are also going to start a missionary bulletin board at church (yeah there's a church bulletin in every church even around the world) and start missionary training as well. Those are a few changes. In general I hope to change myself to be more excited and to pray with more energy.

I would like to mention about the power of reading the Scriptures every day, mighty prayer, and going to church. There's nothing better than these to prepare us to be let by the Spirit. When anyone we teach is having a rough time and feels like they can't get over it, always they're lacking at least one of the three.

Last week I went and picked up my new pants. It feels nice to have pants designed to my body and look classy too. After that I went to a nightmarish place. It was horrible. It was a giant mall with levels underground and the most amount of everything anyone would ever want to buy, and all for cheap. Crystal would have a hay day.
And it doesn't help that I speak Thai and can ask them to lower their prices which are raised because lots of foreigners go there. I should definitely not take any females there in the future. Yeah. But the good thing is that I bought 12 neckties for less than 6$.

Well, time to go. If you have any questions about Thailand and my investigators and such, feel free to ask. I don't know what to talk about, I just tell you my feelings.
Thailand is awesome. You all are awesome-er!
Love you all,
Elder Lilly